exclusion-in-Washington.indd

EXCLUSION IN WASHINGTON

In 1882, for the ﬁ rst time in

United States history, Federal

law forbade entry of an ethnic

group of laborers on the basis that they endangered public safety and order.

This was done through the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

This act provided a 10 year ban on Chinese labor immigration. The only

Chinese people who were permitted to enter the country were those who

obtained government certiﬁ cation. This certiﬁ cation was only given to non-

laborers- students, government ofﬁ cials, etc.- but proving this was often

difﬁ cult given the loose structure of the law.

Exclusion also meant that new requirements were placed on those who had

already entered the country. State and Federal courts no longer had the right

to grant citizenship to Chinese resident aliens. However, they could still deport

these people.

The passage of this act

came after a long period

of anti-Chinese discrimination. There were more than 200 incidents of ethnic

cleansing in the last half of the nineteenth century, many of them occurring

before the passage of the Act.

Several other Americans perceived Chinese immigrants as a threat. One

accusation was that the Chinese weakened the community by sending money

back to their families in China. Another concern was that Euro-American jobs

were threatened by immigrant labor because Chinese workers often received

wages that were much lower than their Euro-American counterparts. This was

not done to undercut Euro-American wages but rather because of the lower

pay received by all minorities in

this period.

As economic depression struck

the Paciﬁ c Northwest, some non-Chinese workers and labor unions began to

feel that the solution to unemployment issues was in the expulsion, or forced

removal, of Chinese people from the area. On September 2, 1885, a group

of British and Swedish miners attacked their Chinese counterparts at Rock

Springs, Colorado. They killed 28 men, wounded 15 and drove hundreds of

Chinese workers into the desert. The news traveled nationwide and only days

later, the ﬁ rst of Washington’s expulsions occurred.

EXPULSION

The images to the right are details from West Shore magazine, based in Oregon. They depict the 1886

anti-Chinese riots in Seattle. This publication expressed views against the violence while still referring to

the Chinese as an “undesirable” group of immigrants. Washington State Historical Society Collections.

1850 “Ah-Long” becomes the ﬁ rst- and only-

Chinese man to be recorded in the

Washington Territorial Census.

1853 Washington Territory is established. A

measure is adopted to deny Chinese people

the right to vote.

1860 Still only one Chinese person is recorded

in the census. This person is believed to have

been Chin Chun Hock.

1868 Chin Chun Hock begins a store in Seattle

called the Wa Chong Company.

1869 Seattle is incorporated as a township.

1873 300 Chinese people from Portland arrive in

Olympia to lay track from Kalama to Tacoma

for the Northern Paciﬁ c Railroad.

Eventually, the Northern Paciﬁ c will hire over

15,000 Chinese laborers.

1876 Census records report 250 Chinese people

living in Seattle.

1880s Economic depression strikes Washington.

1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act is passed.

1885 A riot in Rock Springs, Wyoming on

September 2nd of this year sparks

anti-Chinese violence in the Northwest. One

action occurs on September 9th when the

mining community of Black Diamond expels

their Chinese population. In November, the

citizens of Tacoma do the same.

1886 In February, a Seattle citizen committee forces

more than 350 Chinese onto wagons and puts

them on the steamer, Queen of the Paciﬁ c.

Territorial Governor Squire declares a state of

insurrection and requests federal troops.

Martial law is not ended until July of that

year.

1899 Chin Gee Hee, a merchant, predicts in an

Seattle Post-Intelligencer interview that there

will be no Chinese in Seattle within 10- 12

years.

TIMES OF TROUBLE:

WASHINGTON’S CHINESE

PEOPLE IN THE 1800S

1885

TACOMA

886

EATTLE

1886

OLYMPIA

The Chinese

expulsion in

Tacoma was

unusual in that

it was not spontaneous but had been planned. A number of city

ofﬁ cials and Knights of Labor union members participated in the

plan to remove all Chinese people from their city. On November

3, this group of citizens moved through the city, forcing people

from their homes and businesses and driving them into the street.

Although there were those, like Reverend W.D. McFarland, who

protested, they were not able to stop the expulsion from taking

place.

Mow Lung, a Chinese merchant, later recalled: “I saw a mob of

several hundred men on the street. They came to my store and

kicked off the door. They took hold of the Chinese that were in

the houses, some of whom were Chinese women, including my

wife, and pulled them out of the doors… The mayor of Tacoma, Mr.

Weisbach, was there at the time with the mob.” More than 200

Chinese people were forced out of Tacoma that night. Most of

them never returned, leaving Tacoma the only major west coast

city without a

“Chinatown”.

On February

7th, a citizen committee in Seattle told the Chinese people living

there that they were being forced to leave the city. More than

350 people were forced onto wagons and hauled to Seattle docks

where they were placed on a steamer bound south. Territorial

Governor Watson Squire stopped the ship from leaving that night.

He then proclaimed a state of insurrection and declared martial

law, requesting government intervention. Federal troops were

sent to Seattle, where they remained until July of that year.

In a November

1885 town

meeting,

Olympians had drafted a resolution on what they termed the

“Chinese Question”:

“Be It Resolved: […] while we fully realize the fact that we have too much of the

Chinese element in our midst, we as clearly recognize the fact that they are here in

and by the virtue of law and treaty stipulations, and that we are decidedly opposed

to their expulsion by force or by intimidation, or by any other unlawful means,

but we will at all times give our aid and support to any measures looking to a

peaceable and lawful riddance of that element and a ﬁ nal solution of the ‘Chinese

question’.”

True to this statement, on February 9th, 1886, when presented

with rioters attempting to expel the Olympia Chinese community,

citizens responded. Sheriff William Billings deputized prominent

residents who patrolled city streets. They arrested the leaders

of the riot who were then tried, convicted and sent to prison on

McNeil Island.

Chew, Ron. Reﬂ ections of Seattle’s Chinese Americans: The First

100 Years. 1994: Wing Luke Asian Museum.

Echtle, Edward. “Olympia’s Historic Chinese Community.” July

31 2007 .http://olympiahistory.org/olympiachinese/history.

html#Railroads (accessed August 30 2007).

Friday, Chris. Organizing Asian American Labor: The Paciﬁ c Coast

Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942. 1994: Temple University

Press.

Hildebrand, Lorraine Barker. Straw Hats, Sandals and Steel: The

Chinese in Washington State. 1985: Washington State Historical

Society.

McCunn, Ruthanne Lum. Chinese American Portraits: Personal

Histories 1828-1988. 1996: University of Washington Press.

Morgan, Murray. Puget’s Sound: A Narrative of Early Tacoma and

the Southern Sound. 2003: University of Washington Press.

Pfaelzer, Jean. Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese

Americans. 2007: Random House.

Schwantes, Carlos Arnaldo. The Paciﬁ c Northwest: An

Interpretive History. 1996: University of Nebraska Press.

Yung, Judy, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai. Chinese-

American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present. 2006:

University of California Press.

f S l ’ Chi A i Th Fi

FIND OUT MORE

by Gwen Perkins

Washington State History Museum, 2007

All images on these pages are from the

Washington State Historical Society Collections.

The term “Pai Hua” or “the Driven Out” would later

become the way in which some Chinese people would

refer to the expulsions. They were not passive victims-

after the events in Tacoma, with the aid of the Chinese

embassy, Chinese-American citizens would ﬁ le civil

claims against the government seeking reparations.

The Chinese Expulsion Act was followed by the Geary

Act, 10 years later. This Act forbade the entry of all

Chinese people into the United States. It also forced

Chinese immigrants to wear photo identity cards

around their necks in order to prove their legal status.

More than 100,000 Chinese-Americans refused this

government order to wear these cards. This was the

largest mass civil disobedience in United States history

at this time in history.

Chinese-Americans continued to struggle against

prejudice in the country which they had come to call

home. The community began to share their resources,

forming businesses and using the judicial system to

defend their civil rights.

It was their struggle in two court cases, Yick Wo v.

Hopkins (1886) and Wong Kim v. United States (1898)

that led to changes in citizenship laws. As a result of

these court decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court conﬁ rmed

the citizenship of any person born in the United States.

Also conﬁ rmed was equal protection of the law for all

citizens, regardless of race or nationality.

But it was not until 1943 that the Chinese exclusion

laws would be ofﬁ cially repealed. Washington state

senator Warren G. Magnuson sponsored an act to do

so. This act, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt,

established an annual quota of 105 Chinese immigrants.

It did, however, allow the Chinese to apply to become

naturalized citizens for the ﬁ rst time.

This change came about in part because of the United

States’ entry into World War II. As Chinese-Americans

were ﬁ nding gradual acceptance into society, this was

because of the war with Japan. China and Japan had

been enemies for centuries. With China as the ally of

the United States in the conﬂ ict, attitudes began to

change. However, as laws discriminating against the

Chinese were repealed, Japanese Americans across the

United States were being placed in internment camps.

The contributions of the Chinese people to Washington

have continued. 1962 saw the election of Wing Luke

to the Seattle City Council. Wing Luke was the ﬁ rst

Chinese American to be elected to ofﬁ ce in a large

U.S. city on the mainland. In 1997, Gary Locke, 21st

governor of Washington, became the ﬁ rst U.S. governor

of Chinese descent.

The time of the expulsion was not forgotten, however.

Locke remembered it in a 1997 address:

“In the history of every minority in America, there are

stark contrasts of light and dark. There are tales of

terrible oppression and persecution- and, on the same

page- tales of incredible courage, and passionate

advocacy for equal rights.

As we work to restore the historical memory of the

anti-Chinese, anti-immigrant violence of the 1880s,

we must also- and equally- work to restore our

historical memory of the people who opposed it.

We should build… monuments to the citizens and the

sheriff in Olympia, who put their lives on the line when

they stood between an angry, armed mob and their

intended Chinese victims.

It is not enough to vilify the bigots. We must never

forget to celebrate the heroism of those who stood up

to them.”